Title

Author

Date of Award

Degree Name

Department

Teaching, Learning, and Leadership (to 2007)

First Advisor

Dr. Van E. Cooley

Second Advisor

Dr. Ralph Chandler

Third Advisor

Dr. Jianping Shen

Fourth Advisor

Dr. Uldis Smidchens

Abstract

Because of the current and future critical roles community foundations play in their geographical areas, the limited research to inform the community foundation field, and the importance o f studying organizational culture, there was a need to study the organizational culture of community foundations. A questionnaire was sent to 179 community foundation staff members in one state in the Midwest. Responses were received from 98 of the 179 staff members.

It was found that the actual organizational culture of the community foundation “industry” was differentiated across all variables (staff overall, paid staff size, asset size, and age of foundation). Organizations with a differentiated culture have many small, sometimes competing “subcultures” within a larger culture (Martin, 1992; Martin & Myerson, 1988). Relationships between paid staff size and the age o f the foundation and actual organizational culture were found to be significant. This was not the case for the relationship between asset size and actual organizational culture.

It was found that the desired organizational culture of the community foundation “industry” was integrated across all variables (staff overall, paid staff size, asset size, and age of foundation).

Community foundation staff members expressed a desire to have an integrated organizational culture, a homogeneous culture characterized by “comprehensively” shared cultural knowledge and organization wide consensus (Martin, 1992; Martin & Myerson, 1988). Relationships between paid staff size, asset size, and the age of the foundation and the desired organizational culture were found to be nonsignificant. Community foundation staff members overall and within each level of paid staff size, asset size, and the age of the foundation desired to have an integrated culture rather than a differentiated culture, supporting the existence of a culture gap. The magnitude of the difference between the two cultures for all variables was large.